Springfield High School star Howard Drew was original 'World's Fastest Human'

About 15 minutes south of his hometown of Springfield, and 10 minutes north of Hartford, where he worked and raised his family, is a small, nondescript veterans’ cemetery.

In among the rows of plain white headstones at Northwood Cemetery in Windsor, Conn., is the final resting place and the only monument to Howard P. Drew, the original “World’s Fastest Human.”

Drew’s accomplishments as a student and athlete in the early years of his life were extraordinary, especially for a young, black man. His achievements as an author, coach, soldier, lawyer and judge were equally uncommon.

He constantly made headlines, set numerous world records on the track, blazed trails in multiple sports and excelled in scholarship and in his career, but he now lays in near obscurity, all but forgotten by time.

Drew was born in 1890 in Lexington, Va. His parents didn’t want to raise their son in the Jim Crow South so they re-settled in Springfield.

In the summer of 1905, when Drew was 15, he decided to sneak off to the Fourth of July “Springfield City Games” to compete in the annual track and field competition. Not having any money to properly outfit himself, he sewed his own track uniform from one of his mother’s “borrowed” bed sheets and made his own spikes by driving roofing nails through the soles of his tennis shoes.

He won the 100-yard dash, but the nails hurt his feet so much that Drew decided to run the 440-yard dash in his bare feet on a cinder track and took first place in that race as well.

Drew later recalled “what the nails failed to do to my feet, the cinders on the ground did. I felt I had been walking on a sea of glass mingled with fire. I went home with sore feet but very proud of my two medals.”

About the author

Larry Libow is the USA Track & Field New England youth athletics chair, a USA Track & Field youth coach and a volunteer track coach for the YMCA of Greater Springfield and the High School of Commerce in Springfield. He is also the founder and executive director of the Howard Drew - Springfield Mayor's Cup All-City Track & Field Championships.

It should be noted that he also won the long jump that day but tore out the stitching in his shorts in the process and had to make a hasty retreat.

Drew entered Springfield High School in 1906 as one of very few black students, but dropped out his freshman year to help support his family working as a bellhop. Not to be denied an education, he reentered high school in 1910 at the age of 20.

He played baseball, was a star running back on the football team and was already acknowledged as one of the nation’s fastest sprinters. The head of the national Amateur Athletic Union, Jack Sullivan, was so impressed by Drew running a 10-second flat, 100-yard dash that he personally encouraged him to try out for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

The road to the Olympic trials started in Harvard stadium where Drew won the 100 in 10.75 seconds. With financial donations spurred on by publicity in the Springfield newspapers, Drew headed to the University of Michigan for the U.S. trials.

Drew not only beat the fastest American of the time, Ralph Craig, he tied the world record in the 100-yard dash. With financial aid coming from across the state, including from the mayor of Boston, Drew was joined on board the SS Finland by fellow track team member Jim Thorpe as they set sail for Sweden.

Drew had his fair share of injuries during his track career, including a time when partial paralysis threatened to end his track career altogether. But, none was so poorly timed as pulling a muscle in the semifinals of the 100-yard event in Stockholm.

Drew had easily won his preliminary, practically jogging in at 11 seconds flat. He decided to go for a record in the semifinal, but at about the halfway mark, with a big lead, his left leg gave out. He hopped across the finish line in first place, and was intent on competing in the finals, but no amount of therapy could get him ready in time.

His trainers told him he risked permanent injury. So, with great disappointment, Drew he watched teammate Ralph Craig win both the 100- and 200-yard events, knowing he would have easily won had he been able to compete.

Craig was recently inducted into the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame, primarily as a result of winning the gold medals at the 1912 Olympics.

Drew did have an opportunity to play on the U.S. Olympic exhibition baseball team, sharing left field responsibilities with Thorpe. He was given an honorary medal and diploma by the U.S. Olympic Committee, but not the 100-yard gold medal which he anticipated bringing home.

Fate stepped in one more time to deny Drew his chance for Olympic glory. The 1916 Olympics were canceled due to World War 1. Drew was the star of the “Pershing Olympics” held in France for the allied armed forces, but by the time tryouts for the U.S. track team for the 1920 Olympics came, Drew, now in his 30s, was unable to make the team.

During his college days at the University of Southern California between 1913 and 1916 Drew tied or set every world record from 30 to 250 yards. The press called him the “Negro Speed Marvel,” the “Colored Flyer,” the “Negro Dash Man” and the “Crack Colored Sprinter” but the title that was first given to anyone, still used to this day, was “Fastest Man in the World.”

Drew was a straight-A student at USC, a member of the Skull and Dagger Honor Society and a frequent contributing journalist to local newspapers. He completed his post-graduate education at Drake University where he continued to compete in track meets, played football and was a motivational speaker.

He interrupted his education to enlist in the Army during World War I and was honorably discharged in 1919 as a supply sergeant. While in the Army he received a Victory Medal and one defensive bar for his service.

In 1920 he passed the bar to practice law in Connecticut and moved to Hartford to set up a practice, one of only four black attorneys in the state at the time. There, he raised a son and a daughter with his second wife Dora, whom he had met at Drake.

Drew accomplished so much during his extraordinary life. He wrote newspaper articles on civil rights, fitness and education. He was a track coach and later a track official, often as a starter for events that included Jesse Owens.

Honoring Howard Drew

Plans are in the works to honor Howard P. Drew as a result of a meeting between Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and coach Larry Libow. A committee is being formed to work towards these six goals by the spring of 2012:

• To have a Drew exhibit at the Springfield History Museum on the 100th anniversary of the 1912 Olympics;

• To hold a banquet to honor Drew and other outstanding track-and-field athletes from Springfield;

• To raise funds for the commission of a statue of Drew

• To have the statue placed in Forest Park, the site of his first track meet and first gold medal;

• To have Drew inducted into the Springfield High School Athlet´ic Hall of Fame; and

• To lobby for Drew’s induction into the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame.

Drew became the first black judge in Connecticut and served on the local draft board during World War II. He met Booker T. Washington and was on the cover of the July 1915 edition of the NAACP’s Crisis magazine - the special “Education Number.”

Notably, as a high school youth he refused invitations to run at Boston Athletic Association track meets because they posted a notice that “no Negro would ever represent the association in any way.” Drew refused to act as an attraction for them under the circumstances and publicly stated so in many newspaper stories.

Perhaps because he never received an Olympic gold medal, his name and his accomplishments have been forgotten by time. In his hometown of Springfield, there is hope to finally pay proper tribute to the original “World’s Fastest Man” by the 100th anniversary of the 1912 Olympics.

Sources for this story included The Republican archives; materials at the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History; the publication “Howard Porter Drew: Record Breaker- Rule Maker,” 2006, University of Southern California Black Alumni Association; and Laura Ball, curator of Howard Drew memorabilia and exhibition researcher.

Connecticut Valley Historical Museum ArchivesHoward P. Drew as a member of the Springfield High School track team in 1912.